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Russell Brand Announces He's Working on Children's Book Series (and It Doesn't Seem Like a Prank)

Sure enough, Brand's version begins: "Once upon a time, long ago, in a time that seemed to those present, exactly like now, except their teeth weren't so clean and more things were wooden, there was a town called Hamelin."

Sounds as though these are meant to be enjoyed by both little ones and their parents. And considering he called his first memoir My Booky Wook, this really doesn't seem that far of a stretch.

"It's coming out soon. Do you want it? You can have it if you want," Brand promised. His Trickster Tales are intended to be, he said, "where I do interpretations of fairy stories and folk tales, believing them to be the code to unlock aspects of our consciousness and to affect and impact the way we see the world."

Kind of like his standup routines, really.

"Once we start changing the way children see the world," he continued, "well, we can do all sorts of stuff."

Keep watching for more of Brand reading from his version of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin,' due out this fall. Chris Riddell ("he does those satirical things" in the Guardian and Observer, Brand explained) is doing the illustrations, some of which the author showed off in his video, suggesting that this is not an April Fools' Day prank.

"The Pied Piper of Hamelin went from pest control to child abduction on the basis of unpaid fees," Brand tweeted along with a link to his video earlier today.

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